Warm Bodies
by Amaris Magic
Summary: After a zombie attack, J encounters Romeo and it's love at first sight. First as her captive, then her reluctant house guest, Romeo is a blast of living colour in J's grey landscape, and something inside her begins to bloom. But their unlikely bond will cause ripples they can't imagine, and their hopeless world won't change without a fight. (Zombie!Julie, Human!R)
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Some scenes and quotes in this fanfic, are from the book/movie Warm Bodies. I do not own the characters, they belong to Isaac Marion, and the people who made the movie, I do not own the plot. But I do own the idea of a role reversal between R and Julie, and I own my OC's. Rated T for swearing and a bit of innuendo, so you have been warned.**

There's that old saying that we never understand the value of something until it's gone. Everything that I have, everything that I ever was is gone. I have no memory of who I am or of my life before the shit hit the fan and caused me to walk aimlessly about with a severe hunger issue. I don't know my favorite color, whether or not I like chocolate or vanilla or if I take sugar in my coffee. Hell I don't even eat chocolate or drink coffee. My diet tends to demand beating hearts, warm flesh, and the stuff horror movies are made of. Is it bad to say that my mouth is watering a little when I think of that?

What I do know, however, is that I'm dead and there is nothing much I can do about it. I can only prevent myself from slipping deep down into despair like some do and end up becoming a boney. Bonies are those rotting skeletons that have the tendency of popping up at the worst of times and ruining your day. And when I mean by ruining I mean you running for your life before getting thrown to the ground and your face torn off clean from your skull, I can't really think of anything worse ruining your day. When a zombie (I prefer the term 'living impaired') gives up the last bit of life they have left, they peel away their outer selves and become just like the rest of the morbid horde: skinny, decomposed and fucking scary. I try to avoid them even though I know they won't kill me, I'm already dead, but if I had a beating heart then there would be a problem, I would be screwed, then dead, and back to where I started, a zombie.

Basically what I end up thinking at the end of the day, as I'm sitting in my airplane, which I'm quite proud in calling my home, is this: If I can't even so much as remember my name, then I have virtually nothing. If that's the case then I must value nothing, because I can't remember if I had anything in the first place to lose.

So why is it that I still feel like something's missing? Why am I so curious about the world around me? Especially if all I see is the dead walking around without a destination in mind. I guess this is why I still bother thinking about things, like why that man is dead in the first place or why that women chose that type of dress to wear, it's obviously too formal for a walk in the airport. But what do I know? I have this vacant feeling inside me that I can't seem to fill; I can't fill it with questions or answers because I've got too many questions but not enough answers, there has to be a balance in life.

Maybe if I straighten up more when I walk, or add some more color to my pale gray skin, I'll get some sense of balance; a shower might work too, I try not think about how badly I must smell right now. Once again I remind myself that I'm dead and none of this should matter to me; but it does matter to me so I try to find a happy medium. Being dead isn't so bad, it's lonely and dull, but it could be worse.

I walk towards the only friend I have left, I don't know his name and he doesn't know mine but he still ended up being the closest thing I have to a friend. If it came down to addressing one another I was simply called J, and he was M. It was the only thing that either of us could remember of our past, the first letter to our names. It's funny how that works out.

We don't exactly have conversations, the closest I can get to describe our little talks is a series of grunts and subtle expressions; but we tend to understand each other so I guess that is all that matters. On some occasions we even form words. Not sentences but words, I don't even think I'm capable of sentences but then again I don't think I've tried.

This ended up being one of those occasions.

"Hun...hungry." I managed to say. M turned to me with dull understanding in his eyes; I always liked to think that his mind was as active as mine. I wondered whether or not he was swimming in as many questions as I was.

"City." he replied. I nod, wanting nothing more then to fill my stomach. It was a long walk to our destination, but we will manage, I've got nothing waiting for me and time is not an issue when you're dead.

Even though we can't communicate with each other, we zombies do, after all, share a similar taste in food. So having us travel in packs just kind of makes sense, especially when everyone and their grandmother is trying to shoot you in the head all the time. God, we move slow. This could take a while. Anyway those who were fortunate enough to have escaped the plague and still possessed a beating heart have enclosed themselves behind large concrete walls; I would've do the same if there were an army of the ex-living wishing to eat me. There were groups that would leave the commune to scavenge for supplies, they were the ones we usually hunted, and of course, they always came prepared. One shot in the head and we are most definitely dead, more so then we already are. I'm glad that most of those I've come up against were terrible shots. A bullet in the shoulder was fine by me, getting shot in the stomach was even better, and I'm not using it so why not use it for target practice? Even though I have been lucky, it didn't mean I was any less careful. I'm dead not stupid.


	2. Chapter 2

"Romeo! Your going to get yourself killed one of these days! What are you doing up there anyway?" Nora called out to me as I sat on top of the wall, with my feet dangling down the other side.

"Just getting some fresh air." I called out as I swung my feet back over the edge and gripped the ladder that will bring me back to reality. Normally If I couldn't be found within the city it was more then likely that I was on top of the wall gazing outwards.

Apart from my constant training, I was left mostly to my imagination these days, having been locked behind a wall for my own safety. So when I sit on top of that wall I imagine I'm somewhere else; it didn't have to be the beach or some fancy restaurant, I just wanted to be somewhere, anywhere.

I still had hope that things will change and that I would not have to reside in a box but have the ability to venture out towards I didn't care where. Anything was better then here. There was nothing left for me, aside from a few friends. Yet I was the type to never give up and to never surrender; though some days I wondered what happened if I did give up. But those moments always passed and I was back to helping whenever I could and going out to gather supplies. I like to think I'm strong willed but it's mostly my hope that drives me, hope for the future.

I jumped from the ladder and faced Nora, "What's up, Nora?"

"We're going on a recon mission, we need more medical supplies...you up for the job?" she asked with a smirk. Nora didn't even need to ask me, I was always ready to scavenge; it allowed for me to leave the wall, at least for a short time, and shuffle of this mortal coil we call life, I've always felt refreshed after I've been on a scavenge.

We gathered our bags and headed towards the entrance. Four other residents accompanied Nora and myself, each varied in age and style, but all had the same purpose: to hunt and to survive. There was only one familiar face in the team other then Nora, today's team leader otherwise known as my girlfriend, Alisha. Each of us were handed a weapon, a Robinson Armament XCR was pushed into my hands along with a few extra ammo magazines. I'll probably need it all. I never liked guns, they were far too loud and I always felt a pang of remorse course through me whenever I shot a corpse right between the eyes. Even though they were trying to devour me, they were still somebodies mother, or father, a wife or husband. If my lover ever fell under the plague I would still shoot them but I would be very conflicted about it.

We stood before a large screen that flickered to life showing us the same video that everyone must see before they leave the commune: Audrey Peirce, my mother was onscreen, "Hello, and thank you for your service today." I stand with my girlfriend on one side and my best friend on the other, watching the recorded message. I'm a little nervous, but try to act unaffected. I have been on salvage runs before. No incidents.

"In the eight years since this plague destroyed our world, and we erected this wall..."

I hated that video as much as I hated being confined within this city. Mum explained bluntly that a corpse was nothing inside, they felt no remorse, no emotion; we were to push away the fact that they were once human and to shoot them square in the head. She thanked us for our services. I could remember my first thoughts when I saw this video: what a load of shit. Deep down I knew that the dead still felt something, I didn't know what, but they were not empty. I refused to believe that you could lose everything that makes you human when you die.

I lean towards Alisha. "You think we're getting the stuff for the cure?" Probably not, but I'm allowed to dream, right?

Alisha rolls her eyes and shakes her head. "Nobody believes in a cure anymore, Rome." Yeah, I should have known she'd say that. Still kind of hurts, though.

"...We have counted on young volunteers like yourselves to gather resources from beyond the wall." And you know why they want young volunteers? 'Cause we can run away faster.

"But first, a word of caution." The screen changes to video footage, showing a zombie, who's looking toward the camera, and then lurching forward. "Corpses look human; they are not. They do not think, they do not bleed." The corpse gets closer, and then the camera angle wavers and changes to the sky. Guessing whoever took that footage isn't around anymore. "Whether they were your mother or your best friend, they are beyond your help. They are uncaring, unfeeling, incapable of remorse."

"Sound like anyone you know, Mum?" I mutter. Her recorded image keeps talking. Just like the real thing would do.

I sneak a look at Alisha. We all know this, but she's had a much closer experience than some. She's looking grim, eyes glassy, but no more than usual. I haven't seen her smile much, since her father's corpse tried to kill her, last year.

"Just picture them as this." The picture switches to a desiccated skeleton running towards the camera with a scream. Yeah, I've seen it before, but that's still scary. I've seen corpses before. Never saw a skeleton.

"As sons and daughters of possibly the sole remaining human settlement on Earth, you are a critical part of what stands between us and extinction." Thinking about that, I reach for Alisha's hand. "Therefore, you have an obligation to return to us safely." Alisha pulls her hand away from mine, pointing at the screen instead, looking uncomfortable. "And if you remember your training, you will."

I look away from Alisha; my heart is starting to sink. Is she giving up? Right before going out on a risky mission is not the time to get all fatalistic.

"Good luck, God speed," the message concludes, "and God bless America." Nora leans towards me, chanting softly, "U-S-A, U-S-A." I can't help but crack a smile. Thank god I still have an ally.

"Let's go," Alisha says, to all of us. Then we're heading for the wall, weapons ready. We're searching in a new direction today, and possibly going further out. The nearer places are already picked over. We're especially looking for drugs, medicines. Pharma-salvage. My favorite. Pills are much lighter than canned goods.

My frustrations were soon forgotten when the door to the wall opened, allowing for my fellow scavengers and I to leave the safety of our home and enter a mass grave. The streets were silent and still, I found it haunting. I remember when these very streets were filled with cars and people; children laughed as they held on to their mother's hands as they crossed the streets. Everything has changed. It was empty now with neglect hanging thick in the air, cars had been carelessly left in the streets and garbage blew across the pavement with the wind. The eerie part of it all was that there were no ghosts. There is only silence.

No zombie hoard right outside the wall, so we lower our guns, looking around. In spray paint on the wall of an old building it says, **Welcome to the Dead Zone. Look alive out there.**

I hear Nora whisper, "Sweet."

Yeah, I really hope so.

The storefronts surrounding us as we travelled have long been forgotten; the fruit siting outside of the supermarket have been rendered to black pulp with mould spreading to the wooden stands. The air was heavy with rot; I knew nothing fresh could be salvaged. I've come to realize rather quickly that you never truly appreciate something until it is gone. I lost almost everything, thus my appreciation for what I have left is weighing pretty heavy on my shoulders.

Alisha took the lead and brought us to a small private hospital. Pharmaceuticals were the aim of the game today. The streets had been quiet, no sightings of Corpses, and the hospital building itself was imposing if untouched. We stepped through the doorway of the Hospital, straining our ears to hear for any movement inside. A moment has passed before we deemed it safe to begin salvaging.

This was always my favorite part, exploring, because I never knew what I was going to find. My excitement was beginning to take its toll as I walked along the hospital isles; my chest felt lighter. It may be pathetic, being overjoyed in exploring a hospital, but it is always the simple joys I keep close to me is what stirs me awake.

"Hey Berg, you gonna help us out or what?" Alisha growled down at Berg, who had found some batteries for his portable game and was sitting with his back to a bench, intent on the screen. "No dice, almost at level five."

My bag was beginning to fill with simple treasures; batteries, shampoo, body lotion, ibuprofen, Polysporin, bandages, all the things we take for granted but are in high demand now. Nora was at the other end of the isle, working her way up; she had armed herself with a shopping bag and was filling it to the brim with whatever she could get her hands on.

"I've missed that smile," she said as she glanced towards me. I grinned, "You should know by now what gets me excited."

"Prozac?" she asked, I rolled my eyes,

"An adventure, and this is as close to one as I'm going to get, besides you know I like to dig around."

I was reaching for a cabinet I'd pried open when I heard a faint clang from downstairs and I saw Nora stiffen, standing up straight and staring warily at the door. The pharmacy only had one entrance - I wished Alisha had listened to me and agreed to leave somebody on guard outside.

"Did you hear that?"

"I did." I agreed readily, bringing the muzzle of the gun up. I glanced at Alisha. "We should bail." I didn't like this hemmed-in room, the faint but still cloying smell of the hospital lingering in the air, and least of all the unexplained noise from downstairs.

"Whoa hey, we can't just bail, we have _orders_." I should have known better than to push a point with Alisha, she was as stubborn as a corpse. "Do you have any idea how much medicine the city goes through a month? We need pharma-salvage to survive, we can't just abandon our-"

"God, you sound just like my Mother." I complained, stalking by Alisha and dropping my bag on the bench top, still tense.

"Thank you." Alisha was actually serious. Nobody in their right mind ought to have taken that as a compliment and I pointed out as much. "Yeah, hopefully your smart enough to know that wasn't a compliment."

"Oh hey guys, take some Prozac. Maybe that'll cheer you up." Nora, trying to diffuse the situation with her offbeat sense of humor. I caught the box she tossed over and stashed it in my bag.

Then came the unmistakable sound of breaking glass from further down the stairwell. Nora tensed up. "I told you I heard something!"

Even Berg was up now, gun lifted, all of us at the ready. The tension in the room had risen. I pumped my shotgun and trained it, unwavering, on the door. "Ali, let's bail!"

She wouldn't let it go. "We have orders." She protested, casting a look at the door, then walking towards it to prove to the rest of us it was safe. "Besides, it was nothing anyway. You're being paranoid, okay?"

At the second she turned to direct the last words at us, a figure loomed on other side of the door's glass panel.

I feel electrified, sick with adrenaline, and briefly furious with Ariana for putting us all in such a bad spot. "Ali!"

The door slams open, and corpses start pouring in, growling loudly. Alisha hits the first one in the face with the butt of her gun, knocking the girl down, for all the good that will do. I drop to one knee for better balance and fire.

Foot steps began to ring through out the isles, there were a lot of them coming in on us fast, the faint click of the safety lock on Nora's gun hit my ears like a ton of bricks. This was really happening. The sound of guns firing cracked through the air like a whip.

From the corner of my eye, I see Alisha jump up on a counter. "Everyone aim for their heads!"

The room erupts in gunfire as the others belatedly realize the danger, but the corpses keep coming, moving fast, jumping over the counter. Berg is pulled down and killed just a few feet in front of me. There is now way in hell I'm going to die. I move behind the counter, diving for cover as if I think they're going to shoot me.

The growling and groaning from the corpses continues to fill the air. The gunshots get fewer. I can hear people getting knocked down, and screaming. Briefly. I see one corpse head explode, at least. But there are too many of them.

Deep breath. I scoot back out into the open, keeping low to avoid friendly fire.

The corpse on top of Berg is - was - a black woman. She rears up and snarls at me. Too easy a shot for me to miss. Bam, she goes over backwards. Down for the count. As I pumped the next bullet into the chamber I saw the one who'd led them in. She was still down after Alisha's hit, propped up on one arm - and staring straight at me.

It was chilling. I'd never been so close to a Corpse before. For a moment our gazes held. I took in a dozen details, as if she were nothing more than a new human whom I'd never met. She was small in a way that made her far less threatening to look at than the rest - a stupid thought if ever there was one. Faint scars were the only thing to disrupt the pale of her skin, paler again than the norm under a mop of curly gold hair tumbling around her shoulders. And her eyes...

For a fanciful moment I almost thought I saw recognizable emotion in them. Wide, expressive eyes, grey to be sure, all the Dead had that same strange colour. But the way she was looking at me...

You're going to get yourself killed! Get back behind cover!

I obeyed the warning in my head, breaking eye contact as I swept back behind my bench. That had been stupid, leaving myself open like that. I must have been affected by being near to the Dead for the first time. But the way the Corpse had stared...

Most of my ammunition was in my backpack, but I had tucked six shells into my jacket pocket for emergencies. Frantic, I reached for them and withdrew a handful. It was too many, and careless in my haste I dropped two, swearing when they bounced away. I let them go and reloaded with another pair, cursing my own slowness. Bullets fired around me, each shot deafening me for a second. A cart was overturned, bottles clattering over the floor. The Corpses were all snarling, and then I heard Alisha's scream.

One of them had her. It was impossible in the melee of sound to pick which direction it had come from and so I frantically moved towards the last bench I'd seen her standing on. I had to fire my way through, then stop and reload again - Berg had fallen and was being fed upon by a trio of Corpses.

I think I knew even as I shot the last of Berg's killers that Alisha was already gone - I couldn't hear her anymore. If she was still fighting, she would be yelling.

"Ali?" The aisle was empty.

She wouldn't just give up!

Wouldn't he? Isn't that what you were worried about? Isn't it why you came?

No! No!

"Alisha!" It burst out of me at a scream, as I pleaded with myself that it couldn't be true. "Answer me!"

She didn't.

Nora, two rows away, was ambushed by a massive Corpse, who overpowered her, her gun bouncing twice as she lost her grip on it. She was lifted, shaken, and I couldn't let my best friend be killed, even if I hadn't been the one to bring her out here into this danger in the first place.

I leaped sideways, lined up through a shelf that perfectly framed the head of my target, and fired my last shot. I blew out the back of the zombie's skull and he fell limp, dragging Nora to the ground with him.

I had no time to find Alisha. Another Corpse was coming for me, but his growl alerted me as he charged. I ran the two steps to meet him, clocking him with my shotgun and spinning him head over heels. There was no time to reach the shells I'd dropped earlier and the shotgun was useless to me now, at least in terms of actual firepower. I grabbed it and swung it as hard as I could into the head of the fallen Corpse at my feet, who groaned shortly - he probably wasn't dead, but I cared only that he didn't try to get back up.

A figure caught my eye - shit! The Corpse from earlier was advancing on me, I hadn't even seen where she'd come from. She took three slow, careful steps towards me. I reached down, whipping the knife from my belt and hurling it. It hit her right in the centre of her chest; I'd aimed as if she was a human! She stared, puzzled, down at the handle sticking out of her flesh, then pulled it free and let it drop. It had to be the stress of the moment taking its toll on me, but she actually looked _hurt_.

It struck me then, seeing her preform such a superhuman feat. I had no weapon left. _I wouldn't be able to beat her_. The fear set in, unwanted, but unstoppable. She was closing in, only an arm's length or so from me with me backed up against a bench top.

"Ro…meo." She stuttered.

I imagined that. She did not talk to me. She did not just say my name.

She was definitely shorter than me; with a fountain of red around his mouth... she'd clearly killed and eaten someone…

_Who_?

I sank back against the cabinet. She followed me down, her face hovering right in front of mine. Why was she toying with me? Her small feminine grey eyes, despite my terror at having her so close to me, didn't look threatening. She didn't look angry at all. She looked...

Scared?

"Ro…meo." She tried again, balancing herself by bracing one hand on the counter, right by my head. I couldn't miss it that time. She'd _spoken_.

She glanced back over her shoulder. There were still bodies littering the floor, from both sides. But one imposingly large Corpse stepped into view, hungrily sniffing the air. A second looked up from a body. The fear kicked back in - strangely, directed more at the hunting, wandering dead, not the one two inches from my face.

She looked back at me, eyes darting nervously, and then she lifted a hand as bloody as her small face. I only realized her intention at the last second. My eyes closed as she touched me, my body paralysed with fear… Her hand was freezing.

I felt a tear escape as I opened my eyes again. She was still right there - leaning even closer, in fact, inhaling my scent. I felt the blood sticking to my face.

"Safe." She murmured, and I could do nothing but huddle in the same spot, staring at him in shock.

Was she trying to... _protect _me? Behind her, the horde of Dead stopped sniffing the air, looking around for a meal.

"C... co-ome." She plucked at my jacket sleeve. "What..." I whispered, horrified. Come with her? Where?

She got up, one hand clinging to my sleeve, the other wrapped around my shoulder, pulling me with her.

She plucked up an errant snow-globe that was sitting on the bench and put it in her pocket as she led me towards the others. I passed Nora huddled under a desk and felt a stab of relief somewhere underneath my fear. She was alive, splattered with dark zombie blood, but alive. She stared at me in horror as I was led forward.

Drawn out into the corridor, my mind began to shut down. Trapped in the middle of the group, with the blonde-haired Corpse staying at my side, unobtrusively coming in between me and any of the others who meandered too close, I was overcome. I didn't know where I was being taken, or why, and I couldn't begin to understand. The sky overhead darkened, and I barely knew in which direction we were going. We passed broken-down cars, dozens of slow-moving dead, and I eventually slowed down as I stared at a bunch of them through a window. They looked like they... lived here?

The girl reached out for my arm. I flinched away, and she cast a nervous glance at the group who had moved a few slow steps ahead of us, before reaching a second time. She pulled me forward, away from the Corpses on the other side of the glass. We had finally approached a building as twilight fell. It was when I was walked through a tall rectangle and a Corpse in a splattered uniform waved a metal-detecting wand at me that I realized - we were in an airport. One populated by _Corpses_.

She stayed just behind me, occasionally nudging me towards a door or down a corridor until we were back outside. The temperature had dropped dramatically, the cold wind blowing my hair across my face. Fallen planes littered the tarmac, but I was guided towards one still standing, with a set of steps leading to the door. Exhausted and stumbling, I was shown up the stairs. I couldn't fight, my body dulled and unresponsive, the events of the day draining out my rationality.

My captor opened the door and waited for me expectantly. It was clear what she wanted. I stepped into the dark interior of the plane warily, almost tripping on my own feet in my exhaustion. My eyes adjusted to the light - the plane was cluttered, but with things, not Corpses. The door clanged closed behind us. There didn't appear to be anyone else here.

Here... I was being held here. The horror seized me even stronger than before. What the hell did she want with me?

I was crying softly now, unable to help myself. Looming behind me, the Corpse touched my shoulder clumsily. I flinched back from her and she quickly dropped her hand.

"Home." She explained in a raspy voice. I didn't even comprehend the meaning behind the word. She gestured to the seats beside us. Desperate to get some distance from her, I sank down onto the seats, scrambling to the far side, drew up my knees, and huddled against the window.

She moved away a few paces, and I heard a clunk, then she returned and sat down opposite me. I couldn't drag my eyes away from her, waiting for her to lunge, break the cycle of this dream.

Instead, she combed her long golden hair back with her slim fingers, looking almost self-conscious. She leaned towards the aisle. "N... not - eat."

When I didn't respond - I couldn't - she pointed in my direction, and then at her bared teeth, which she clicked together, shaking her head. I looked away from the bloody mess.

"Keep you s-afe." I looked over at her at this. She wanted to what...? She got up to approach me and I heard a whimper escape me as I jumped back.

That hurt expression had returned when she stopped, looking down at me as if she were disappointed. I sobbed softly, and finally she turned away, walked back to the front of the cabin and opened the door.

I cautiously unfolded myself and leaped at the window. I watched as she walked away from the plane, glancing back over her shoulder once. There were others outside, wandering, aimless.

Succumbing to my helplessness, I fell back into the seat.

I was alone.


End file.
